We Celebrate: The Night is For Us

I take my cooking (& food) very personally, especially since I’m still finding my way in the kitchen. But H always tells me not to take it to heart when people ignore my food. “But sayang, they didn’t even try it. It’s different ..” blablabla. “How do you teach your children to eat vegetables then?” blablabla.. You get my drift. This is something that I’m trying to work harder on, not to take offense. Not everybody is born with such abandon to embrace every thing different. Some are more cautius, some have very dead-set definition on what tastes good (my parents are good examples). Besides, everyone can do with a bit more freedom to be themselves, right? They aren’t my clowns.

Anyway, last night I had the opportunity to play with not-your-regular-comfort-food. So I made this deep fried chicken cake.

I know, this probably sound a little strange to your ears. But Thai food lovers would know when I say Thai Fish Cake (Tod Man Pla), yes? Well, this is the chicken version, Tod Man Kai.

Same method of preparation. Just that I cheated using Thai red curry paste. I know, right? You don’t have to do only chicken or beef thai curry. You can make something like this. It’s fairly easy, just very messy. The slap back and forth, though comforting in a weird way, caused nightmare in my already messy kitchen.

Before you start, turn on your favourite music. I kinda like Emeli Sande these days.

In a food processor, combine chicken, curry paste, fish sauce, sugar and egg in a bowl and mix really well. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl.

Gather the mixture into a ball and throw back to the side of the bowl. Big stainless steel bowl works best, but I work in batches to minimize kitchen damage.

Continue slapping until the mixture is thicken and sticky (few minutes).

Mix in lime leaves and green beans.

Pour 3-4 tbsp oil into a large flat plate. Grease your hands with the oil. Pinch some mixture with your well oiled hands to form discs.

Deep fry and serve warm, with cucumber relish.

I found that eating the chicken cakes alone is too salty for my liking. But when paired with cucumber relish, it becomes wonderful. So if you’re not planning to do the sauce, hold back the fish sauce and do a taste test right after the food processor stage. And adjust from there before continuing to the slapping back and forth.